Turkish PM warns opposition against street protests

There were protests in Istanbul with a few thousand people crowding the anti-Erdogan Besiktas and Kadikoy districts, blowing whistles and chanting "We are shoulder to shoulder against fascism".

The CHP said Deputy Chairman Bulent Tezcan would present the appeal to the YSK at 2:30 p.m.

Few in Turkey expect legal challenges to the referendum to lead to a recount, let alone a re-run.

"The AK Party is increasingly failing to attract the voters of big cities", said Murat Gezici, head of pollster Gezici, which correctly predicted the outcome of the referendum.

"It is clear that the High Electoral Board is not receiving its power from the people, the law or the constitution but rather from a specific center, a specific political authority", he told his party's lawmakers during a speech in Ankara Tuesday.

Unlike the Nigerian leader, the European Union on Tuesday called on Turkish authorities to launch "transparent investigations" after worldwide observers criticised the fairness of the voting process during the recent referendum.

The head of Turkey's Supreme Electoral Commission, Sadi Güven, confirmed that "yes" had narrowly clinched the victory, based on unofficial results.

"With this illegal decision, ballot box councils (officials at polling stations) were misled into believing that the use of unstamped ballots was appropriate", the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) said in a statement.

Republican People's Party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu accused the electoral board of bias and of favoring the governing party.

He said that the death penalty is more than a red line.

However, unlike President Buhari, the European Union has called on Turkish authorities to launch "transparent investigations" after worldwide observers criticised the voting process during the recent referendum.

The Turkish opposition was particularly incensed by a decision by the YSK to allow voting papers without official stamps to be counted, which they said opened the way for fraud. Opponents accuse him of leading a drive toward one-man rule in Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member that borders Iran, Iraq and Syria and whose stability is of vital importance to the United States and the European Union.

Turkey's prime minister says opposition parties have the right to file objections to the outcome of a recent referendum on expanding presidential powers, but warned that calling for street protests was unacceptable.

U.S. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, ignored the concerns about voting irregularities and congratulated Erdogan on his referendum victory.

The president and government should be setting out the steps they intend to take to restore full respect for human rights in Turkey, including ending arbitrary detention and prosecution, safeguarding freedom of the media and expression and judicial independence, and guaranteeing all citizens their right to political participation, HRW said.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Tuesday rumours of irregularities in a referendum over the weekend were a vain effort to cast doubt on the result, after the main opposition party vowed to apply for the vote to be annulled.